


Built Out of Whole Cloth

by Cryptographic_Delurk



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcoholism, And it's still Fluff despite all of the above, Blasé Treatment of Alcoholism, Dreams & Surrealism, F/M, French Food, Gen, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Occlumency as Coping Mechanism, POV Alternating, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Luna Lovegood, Past Sexual Assault, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Racism, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Stockholm Syndrome, The Quibbler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:48:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4861859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptographic_Delurk/pseuds/Cryptographic_Delurk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/><i>She’s insensitive and completely psycho, but he wishes he could join her there, if only for a moment.</i> Any relationship you have in a cellar isn’t exactly transplantable upon re-entry into society.<br/><br/>The Draco/Luna 8th year fic. Plus as much Pansy as I can manage to fit in.<br/><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Built Out of Whole Cloth

_Oooh, look, a Blibbering Humdinger!_

She had said only the first thing that popped to mind, and so Luna was rather surprised it had worked so well. The eyes of the others followed her hand up and turned away.

Harry gave her a grateful look, which disappeared from sight a mere-half second later as he pulled the invisibility cloak over his face.

Luna thought it was rather silly that people believed the Blibbering Humdinger could have been outside the window. They were rumoured to be found in tropical regions, after all.

But perhaps allowances could be made for the unfathomableness of Hogwarts students. Her half-thought-out and logistically implausible distraction had allowed Harry to slip away unnoticed, after all.

Or more or less unnoticed, she thought, as she pulled the image of five glaring faces into focus.

“What did you do, Loony?! You and your Snorkacks and Humderings! I was going to ask Potter if he if he really flew a dragon out of Gringotts,” Peter Oliveby, a fifth year Ravenclaw was asking her.

“I was going to ask for an autograph,” Jessica Harris, a Gryffindor in the same year, hissed.

Luna opened her mouth to reply, but before she got the words out, the person sitting to her right kicked her legs up under the table so that she fell back down onto the floor of the Great Hall.

“It’s Blibbering _Humdinger_ , not Humdering,” she mumbled from the floor.

But they weren’t paying attention to her anymore. They had all turned towards each other, laughing.

“Isn’t she Potter’s friend?” a tiny Ravenclaw, Amelia Hornby was asking. “Won’t he be upset that you teased her?” She was staring earnestly at Jessica, and didn’t spare a glace down to Luna on the floor.

“You know what she’s like. No backbone. Won’t complain to a soul,” another member of the group answered.

Luna was used to this though, and she stood quietly to brush off her robes. She summoned a tray of biscuits and a napkin from the hall table, and wrapped them in a bundle, pausing briefly to smell the earthy fragrance of the brown sugar.

She might have been instrumental to the running of the DA, at least before her capture during the winter holidays, but now it was _status quo ante bellum_.

Luna told herself she hadn’t expected differently.

It occurred to Luna that she didn’t really have a place to go. All around her families and friends were reuniting.

Only Luna wasn’t sitting near any friends now. Neville was talking to a large group of people, the most fervent listeners appearing to be a starry-eyed Hannah Abbot and Ernie Macmillan. Dean had disappeared; perhaps he was off with Seamus. Ron and Hermione were walking out of the hall, presumably being led by an invisible Harry. Ginny was two tables over, sitting with her mother.

And out of those, well… Ron, Hermione, and Ginny weren’t really the type of friends you could sit with to lunch anyway.

Luna wandered slowly through the hall, her dirigible plum earing swaying as she walked.

Perhaps she could search out a conversation with some of the ghosts. The Fat Friar was always in a cheerful mood. But everyone was in such good mood, what with You-Know-Who finally being gone, it might be best to take advantage of this and try to get a word or two from the Bloody Baron. Or perhaps, she should really look for her Head of House. Professor Flitwick might let her know where she could stay. Or maybe she should return to Shell Cottage.

She thought about her father, still in Azkaban. And about all the other people she might never see again.

And as if summoned by these thoughts, she suddenly saw Draco Malfoy, sitting between his parents and looking very uncomfortable amidst the celebration in the hall. He looked terrified when he realised she was there, approaching him with quick, light steps.

But Luna couldn’t bring herself to care, and perhaps it was just Wrackspurts, but she ran up to Malfoy and pulled him into an embrace, her long blond hair pooling around his face. He was still sitting on the bench.

“You made it out,” she whispered. “You escaped. I’m so glad.”

“Er... yes,” Draco intoned. “You as well.” He waited another moment before tentatively lifting up his arms to return the hug, although with little enthusiasm.

She turned to look up. Lucius and Narcissa were eyeing her warily. It occurred to her that, had either of their wands survived the battle, she would almost certainly have been threatened by now.

She smiled at them. _How lucky for us all that fate makes fools of our bad intentions._ “I’m glad both of you are okay as well. Mr. Malfoy. Mrs. Malfoy.”

She waited a moment for a response. When it wasn’t forthcoming, she pulled away from Draco.

“I need to go find Professor Flitwick and make arrangements for Daddy,” she decided. “I hope we can talk more later, Draco.”

She was a few steps away when she turned back to the Malfoys. All three of them looked hunted and afraid, and Draco had managed to look confused as well.

She allowed herself to smile back at them once more, before turning and skipping away.

==

Lucius and Draco Malfoy had spent the month leading up to the war trials drinking in the drawing room and trying, and failing, to come to terms with their impending mortality.

Narcissa Malfoy had spent the month fretting. She had drawn up countless drafts of letters to Harry Potter regarding the life debt he owed her, and how it might best be repaid at the trials.

“Potter is, above all,” Narcissa would say, “an uncultured brute that spent his formative years around Muggles. It is doubtful he even knows the proper protocol for fulfilling a life debt. The issue is how we can best capitalise on this? We have to prepare for every possible scenario.”

Draco thought about the life debts he owed to Potter, among others, and reached for his gin and tonic.

Narcissa made donations to Saint Mungos, the Wizards for Werewolves non-profit, and discussed the possible merits of backing the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare (she refused to call it by anything less than its full title).

“I think Granger’s little club is akin to a broom that never made it off the ground, mother,” Draco had said, “And besides, doesn’t her friend Potter own a house elf himself?”

“Oh, please, Draco. Miss Granger’s contradictory views on house elves are of no concern,” Narcissa tutted, “Anything that might shine a positive political light on the Malfoy family is something worth looking into.”

It had been a very long month, after which the Wizengamot announced that the Unforgivables, if not forgivable, were at least forgettable as far as the ministry was concerned. All crimes short of manslaughter would be pardoned and the Malfoys would slip by, even Lucius, who had an uncanny ability to get others to do his dirty work for him. It was a technicality few death eaters could claim. Shacklebolt was most certainly aware it was a technicality, at best, but instead of using his pull as the Minister to get them locked up, he had chosen the much more profitable, pragmatic, and, quite frankly, Slytherin approach to the problem: he had used whatever manner of fine print he could find to fine the Malfoys for property damage in Azkaban, the Department of Mysteries, and Gringotts. It was a considerable, but not impossible, drain on the savings account. Draco reflected that he would have to learn his parent’s secrets for choosing good business investments.

Lucius and Draco Malfoy were relieved, and spent the month after the war trials drinking in the drawing room and trying, and failing, to celebrate.

Narcissa Malfoy, on the other hand, had been so worked up, that she seemed almost furious at such an anticlimactic ending.

She scowled as she threw her countless letters to Harry Potter into the fireplace. “Shacklebolt’s got more practical sense than is good for him! He acts the voice of morality half the time, but at the end of the day, he doesn’t relish replacing the entire staff of the Ministry, no matter how many times they used the Cruciatus when Thicknesse was running things!”

She paused to watch the letters blacken and curl in on themselves.

“And these fines are a cheap shot. We didn’t have anything to do with property damage at Gringotts,” she added.

Miffy, one of their house elves, gazed sympathetically at her mistress before handing over a stack of SPEW pamphlets to be burned.

Narcissa’s frustration would find its outlet though. A couple of days after the Wizengamot’s announcement, Draco woke up to a crash in the hall. Fighting his hangover, he pulled on his robe and ran out into the hall, to find his mother standing over the pieces of a cracked wall mirror.

“ _Reducto!_ ” she shouted, pointing her wand at the wood carving of a unicorn at the end of the hall, which burst into a thousand pieces.

“Mother, what..? What are you doing?! _Didn’t great uncle Foyle carve that?!_ ” Draco asked incredulously.

“Yes,” his mother’s eyes were shining. “I don’t see why we keep it around. To celebrate his illicit love of unicorns?” his mother snorted. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Draco. If you feel particularly attached to this piece, you may repair it. But if we are to keep living in this house, it won’t be the house that the Dark Lord and Fenrir Greyback took up residence in. By the time I’ve finished decorating, you won’t even _recognise_ the place!”

Draco glanced at the splintered remains of the unicorn carving. He had never liked it, so why was he defending it? Next to him, the portrait of Grandfather Abraxas was snickering.

Draco decided the only way to deal with this situation was with a drink and stalked off.

It took a day or two for the house to react to Narcissa’s new crusade. The house had fully accepted her into the Malfoy family upon her marriage to Lucius, but now it was feeling the bitter sting of betrayal. Pretty soon, the decorations were hiding to avoid destruction, the carpets Narcissa had put into the storage flew back onto the floors when she left the room, doors refused to open, the house elves were distraught. None of this deterred Narcissa in the least, who transfigured all and any opposing doors, decorations, and carpets into dust bunnies which were swept out with the rest of the rubbish. The elves were told to make tea and stay out of it, a sentiment which was shared by Lucius and Draco.

It was a week before Narcissa had wrestled the upper floors into unrecognizability. The portraits had been rearranged on the walls, one of the more controversial changes, attracting varying levels of dissent from the portraits themselves. The floors had a new wood panelling, varnished in a much lighter colour. The old furniture had been recovered in cloth with simple striped designs. The walls had been subjected to numerous colour charms, the end product being a soft cream colour. And most of the things that had been saved Narcissa’s wrath had been put in storage. The mansion looked positively Spartan compared to its old appearance. It was very bright and airy, Draco thought, and although it didn’t remind him of the Dark Lord or Greyback or Aunt Bella, it didn’t remind him of the place he had first learned to ride a broom either. The rows of hallways and rooms seemed indistinguishable with the portraits moved about, and he struggled to recognise the nursery, where his mother had once told him stories about giants and dragons, or the room he pulled Pansy into, so they could be alone during the New Year’s feast. Narcissa seemed aware of the sensitivity to old memories in her own way, and was careful to display only pictures of them on vacation, and put the rest into albums that she laid casually on coffee tables and shelves.

But, with only the rooms at ground level left to renovate, Narcissa had finally been met with her husband’s resistance.

“Narcissa, my dearest, it is my _study_. You _cannot_ tear it apart like you’ve done with the rest of the place. It’s where I go to review business dealings, and contemplate the complexities of magical society, and to relax,” Lucius was saying.

Draco took the opportunity provided by his parent’s distraction to summon the bottle of firewhisky from his father’s side of the table and refill his glass. He leaned back on his chair, and looked up at the repaired chandelier. Was it possible to grow fond of something that tore your face to shreds, once?

“Really?” Narcissa responded sarcastically. “By my account, the only things you’ve left this infernal drawing room for in the past two months are the privy and our bed. The study could have been taken over by doxies for all you’d know.”

“Impossible,” Lucius Malfoy huffed, taking another draught of firewhisky, “there are doxy repelling charms all over that study. And the house elves would never stand for it.”

“That was not my point, as you are well aware, Lucius. Do not think you can talk your way ‘round me with tricks I, myself, have taught,” Narcissa smiled dangerously.

“That was not my intention at all, dearest,” Lucius said, mollifying, “My intention was only to point out that my study was under control, and to lead nicely into my next point; you won’t be changing things around in this drawing room either.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Lucius, we saw a giant snake eat _a person_ on the very table you’re drinking firewhisky at right now.”

“Yes,” Lucius conceded, “but it’s a very nice table, you must admit. Walnut… with ivory and mother of pearl inlay. Won’t find another one like it, I can assure you.”

“Lucius, this room is a mess, and I mean that in just about as many ways as I can. We entertained the Dark Lord in this room. My sister tortured you in this room. And what about Draco?” She sighed.

Draco made a concerted effort to keep looking out the window, and not turn to his parents at the mention of his name.

“The carpet is dreary. And those grotesques on the fireplace are atrocious. You can’t even tell if they’re supposed to be manticores or chimeras!” Narcissa finished.

“Those grotesques are very useful,” Lucius insisted. “Very intimidating. More than once, political meetings held in this very drawing room have gone my way, due to the pervasive psychological atmosphere they help establish.”

This was a very blatant embellishment, Draco thought. If guests of the manor were intimidated, the grotesques’ influence was negligible, compared to the threat of losing the Malfoy’s political favour, or the threat of being cursed by unknown assailants on your way home from the Ministry. It was one of the many the tell-tale signs that this argument was a lost cause on his father’s part.

But, contrary to Draco’s expectations, both his parents seemed in a much improved mood compared to the start of the conversation. Mother was no longer snippy, and father seemed to be having the most fun he’s had in well over three years, with the light-hearted way they bantered back and forth.

Perhaps it had been a calculated move on each their parts. Mother attacking the study, with the true target being the drawing room, and Father, likewise, sacrificing the drawing room for the study.

“We could blast through this wall right here,” Narcissa was saying. “We could get rid of the wall, and create a nice patio leading out to the garden. The surviving peacocks have recovered for the most part, and it’s getting into breeding season.”

Draco was looking out the window through to the gardens at that very moment. The peacocks were indeed swaying fancifully over one another, the males displaying their ivory white plumage, and looking very pleased. And beyond that, Mother’s wild roses were blooming, and the ivy curled wildly up the wall of the east wing. But it wasn’t very easy to see through the darkened window.

Draco felt his Occlumency walls slip. He hadn’t even been aware that they were up until that moment. He turned to the table that Professor Burbage had been eaten on and then, worse, towards the corridor out of the drawing room, to the entrance to the cellar. That miserable flight of stairs he had crawled down every day that miserable winter break, and then for another miserable week. And then on the fourth day he had…

Draco rammed his Occlumency barriers back into place, but not in time to stop the torrent of words.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea mother! The gardens are really not as accessible as they should be. And, you know what else! How about we fill in the cellar with gravel, and seal off the stairway? We can put an organ on top of it, or something.”

Lucius and Narcissa both looked at him, as if he had gone a bit mad.

But it didn’t take long for Narcissa to capitalise on it.

“Well, maybe not an organ, but… You see, Lucius,” she said. “Your son has the right attitude about this. It would do you well to emulate it a little bit.”

==

“We never ‘ad a chance to go on our ‘oneymoon, Bill.”

Luna sipped at her tea in the kitchen and wondered if Fleur knew that she could hear them. Probably not. It had been almost a year since their wedding, but there had been precious time to settle in and learn that the acoustic properties of Shell Cottage were not conductive to having private conversations in the foyer.

“You know I’ll make time to go, as soon as we’re able to. With Gringotts the way it is now, Ganguk won’t let me take time off work anymore than he’ll let you,” Bill replied.

Bill’s response was louder than Fleur’s. The Weasleys were all rather loud, Luna thought.

“Even if we could leave, zere is still the Lovegood girl and ‘er father to look after.”

Fleur sounded annoyed, and Luna tried very hard not to take it personally.

“I know you like them,” Bill said, not sounding all that sure.

“Of course, I like zem!” Fleur sounded insulted at the insinuation.

Luna felt her heart leap and her shoulders relax, and immediately felt ashamed for letting herself be so easily hurt and so easily reassured.

“Zat is not even ze issue!” Fleur sighed, “Working for ze order, and zen living with your mother, and zen zis safe house. I do not regret it, and zey are much preferred to your mother, and I want zem to stay, but I am worried zere will never be time for us.”

Bill said something back, in French, or maybe in Nobiin or Gobbledegook. Luna could not understand, apart from the soothing tone of assurances.

Luna put her teacup down, turned to her father. He was wearing plain black robes, courtesy of Bill. They fit well, but looked odd. Luna was used to seeing him in bright colours (maroon was his favourite) and in stripes and zigzags and tassels. She would have bought him some more clothes, something more to his usual tastes, if there wasn’t so much else to spend their savings on. Luna pushed away her thoughts about the destruction and repairs for the house in Ottery St. Catchpole, and thought about Professor Flitwick instead.

Professor Flitwick has never been anything but kind to Luna. Luna, in fact, knew very few people who Professor Flitwick wasn’t kind to. He’s kind to Hagrid and McGonagall, and to the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs. He is kind to Harry Potter, and the girls in her dorm that stole her shoes. Flitwick even managed a kindness to the Carrows and to Umbridge, each in their own turn, if only the kindness of knowing how to be merciless without being angry.

He was not kind to Snape last year. And he had confided in Luna that, along with McGonagall, he now mourns the faith he failed to keep. Professor Flitwick said he planned to keep his kindness and his faith even closer now, and there was the implicit message that Luna would be better for holding on to hers as well. He advised that Luna impose on Bill and Fleur a bit longer, and promised to speak with McGonagall and, together, write Shacklebolt, and anyone else they needed to, to help get Luna’s father back. And he had been good to his word.

Shell Cottage was beautiful during the summer. The waves crashed majestically against the coast, and the fields still bloomed with the last of the spring wildflowers. Luna had not gotten tired of sitting outside painting landscapes. She hadn’t gotten tired of owling Ginny and Neville, or working on her Transfiguration summer homework (McGonagall was the only teacher who bothered to assign any). She hadn’t gotten tired of making sandwiches and tea for lunch or sampling the results of Fleur’s latest attempts to teach Bill how to cook for supper.

Luna wished she wasn’t getting tired of the rest of it.

The kindness and faith Professor Flitwick urged her to hold on to have gone a long way to fill the cracks Luna can see popping up everywhere. But it’s spread a little too thin, in a way she hadn’t expected, now that the war was done.

Xenophilius Lovegood’s eyes did not seem fully alert. There wasn’t much to be alert to, with Bill still speaking foreign tongues on the other side of the door. But her father did not seem receptive to English either, as it were.

Luna was very fond of magical creatures, but the Dementors hadn’t been a welcome addition to Hogwarts in her second year. In fact, Luna hesitated to even consider them creatures in the same manner as Niffers, Jarveys, and the Crumple Horned Snorkack. Even the Blast Ended Skrewts, as unfriendly as Luna had found them, had moments where they could coexist peacefully with witches and wizards. These moments usually came when the Skrewts were asleep, but still…

The Dementors, on the other hand, could not come near Luna without eliciting the necessity of her Patronus and, even so, horrible memories would flood around, waiting to drown her, until Neville and Ginny had cast their Patronuses too, and pulled her away.

Her father had seen horrors just as she had. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that he came down with a horrible case of the Pimply Wompies in Azkaban.

Luna was working on her summer homework. Neville had told her he was returning to Hogwarts that fall. Professor Sprout had told him he, and the rest of the students in his year, would be invited back to prepare for their NEWTs. It would be her NEWTs year, and her last year at Hogwarts. It would be the last year with all her friends.

But Luna looked at her father on the couch and was terrified. It would be her last year, if she decided to go. She wasn’t really sure it was safe to leave her father, here at Shell Cottage, with such a bad case of the Wompies.

Luna reached for her sketchbook next to her and flipped through the pages to one of the pages she had worked on today. It was a seascape of the ocean just outside, but she had improvised and drawn in the sky four winged horses, three Aethonans and a Thestral. Luna had abandoned realism a couple days ago, so the horses were rather sketchy, with blurring speed lines, above an unusually sparkling sea, but they didn’t seem to mind. As Luna opened the page completely, they neighed softly and flew animatedly, nipping at one another above the green ocean. She propped the sketchbook up against the pepper grinder and candelabrum on the table.

“What do you think, daddy? I thought about using a darker brown for the wingtips of the Aethonans, but in the end I thought it might be a better contrast to use a lighter palette for them.”

Xeno’s eyes followed the horses as they flew in figure eights, but he did not respond.

Luna told herself she hadn’t been expecting differently, shouldn’t have expected differently just yet.

She stood up, and swivelled around to take the chair right next to her father. She reached for the teacup, and turned it a precise 160° angle before lifting it up to his mouth.

Luna tilted the glass backwards, and Xeno startled when the tea touched his lips. His eyes focused, and he reached up to take the cup from her, and finished off the tea, still watching the flight patterns of the horses.

If you started something he would continue it, Luna had realised. If you sat food in front of him, he would eat, and if you walked him to the privy, he would go inside without fuss, and if you walked him to bed, he would undress and sleep. The sole exception seemed to be conversation. He wouldn’t speak, regardless of how many conversations Luna started.

Luna was tired of starting them, so instead she watched him drink his tea, and reached for his hair. It was long, as always, but coarser and messier than Luna had remembered before Azkaban. Luna ran her fingers through it, and divided it into sections to braid. Seven was a good number for magic. It could be good for braids too, she decided. She set aside a section for each day of the week, and started by braiding Sunday over Thursday.

She thought her dad leaned slightly towards her in his seat. She had to believe it.

Halfway through the braid, as she twisted Monday behind the other days, Fleur and Bill returned to the kitchen. They both looked more relaxed, and redder in the cheeks since they had left. They must have been quiet, a consideration Luna took well.

Fleur smiled appreciatively at them. “It ‘as been getting messy lately. Much better,” she said, raising her wand to magic the empty teacup clean, and back into the cupboard. “I shall ‘ave to braid Bill’s ‘air like zat, if ‘e decides to grow it out more.”

Bill smiled at Fleur and glanced at Luna’s open sketchbook.

“Thank you. It think that would look nice,” Luna said. She sat a minute longer before she decided not to mince words. For all that her and her father didn’t have another place to stay, if there was a problem, she would rather deal with it now, before they imposed past their welcome.

“So have you decided where to go on your honeymoon?” she inquired.

Bill looked at her uncomfortably. “You heard that?” he asked, before looking to Fleur.

Fleur’s eyes widened. It was a slight gesture, one that Luna judged most people would miss. She decided that she would pretend to miss it as well, as a gesture of good faith.

“It is much too early to decide,” Fleur said, still smiling. Luna was struck by how much of the Veela that smile had. Fleur’s hair seemed to glow, even with the curtains blocking the sunlight from the window. “We may not be able to go for a few years. But we ‘ave been talking about ze many places we would like to eventually travel. Istanbul and Salem, and Peru and Ethiopia.”

Luna paused a moment. She had reached the end of the braid, having folded Tuesday between the other bunches of hair. Holding the braid with her wand arm (she was practicing at ambidexterity), she used her opposite hand to reach for her wand, and transfigured one of her bracelets into a ribbon. Or maybe she had already transfigured her ribbon into a bracelet, and was just turning it back to its original form now. Luna decided you could never be too sure of these things.

“If you decide to go to Ethiopia, you’ll have to bring back some Abyssinian Shrivelfigs, and see if you can find any Fwoopers. Daddy says there is a special ten coloured Fwooper that only appears on the night of the new moon. If you take any good pictures, it might be nice to publish them.”

Bill and Fleur exchanged a look, one between incredulity and pity. Luna took the opportunity to tie her father’s hair, and experiment with charming the ribbon different colours.

“We’ll see,” Bill said, and looked back at the sketchbook again. “You and Dean really have a flair for this sort of thing,” he said. “I liked the one you did the other day, with the night blooming flowers.”

“You can have that one, if you like,” she said. She tilted her head at the sketchbook.

The horses were still flying animatedly, although they seemed to have slowed since she had first opened to the page. Perhaps they were tired. Luna thought of Sir Cadogan, fast asleep, lying against his pony, and the trolls in their ballet tutus, resting after a long day of practice outside the Room of Requirement. Luna would have to paint in a place for the horses to land and lay down, or frame it near some other paintings with appropriate grazing pastures.

==

That night, Luna dreamed.

She dreamed often, in fact. The dreams were about the events of the past year mostly. She dreamt about Ginny holding her hand and pulling her through corridors, away from the Carrows, or Professor Snape. She dreamt about Neville and her, sleeping in uncomfortable beds on opposite ends of the Room of Requirement, as they had been provided. She dreamt about the issue of the Quibbler she hadn’t seen until months after its release, calling for the capture of her friend, Harry Potter. She dreamt about Draco, whose mouth stank of liquor, as he sat next to her and listened to her talk about that issue of the Quibbler, and the clouds she had observed at the school Quidditch matches, and what amusing things Moaning Myrtle had told her. Sometimes he kissed her and his mouth was unusually dry, without the heady taste of firewhiskey. On good nights, these dreams ended pleasantly, and they continued kissing lazily, pulling apart every once in a while to review basic potion theory, and classification of ingredients. More often, Draco’s face got lost, behind the sneering faces of Bellatrix and Yaxley and pain and Luna would wake up in cold sweats, out of breath, terrified, with her groin throbbing.

Her dream was unusual that night though. The moon was full in her dream, and the Moon Frogs slipped down through her open window at Shell Cottage, and followed her deeper into her dreams, onto the roof of a large building under a starry sky. The Moon Frogs were a beautiful aqua colour and, wiggling their overly large toes, they ribbited and jumped around her in circles that undulated larger and smaller, and larger and smaller. As the edges of the circles undulated, growing faster than they were shrinking, figures appeared within them. Luna walked around the roof with wonder, observing her mother and her father stepping in motion together, Neville being twirled by the Grey Lady, the living and the dead gathered in these circles to dance together. Luna observed an orange Kneazle-mix dancing with a Scops owl. Over there, was Professor McGonagall standing across from the old headmaster. Professor Dumbledore looked her way and winked, before bowing to McGonagall, who curtsied in turn and accepted his hand.

“Well, it seems you are the only living person here who doesn’t have a partner,” a familiar voice drawled, “and since I am the only dead person here without a partner, it should only stand to reason we dance together.”

Luna turned towards the voice. The person addressing her looked remarkably like Draco, but she knew for certain that it was the late Abraxas Malfoy, dead before she had even been born. She wondered where she had heard the name.

He looked down on her, haughtily, but Luna could see the uncertain quiver of his lip. Maybe, he was nervous. He was awaiting her reply to the invitation.

Luna did not speak, but accepted his hand, and let herself be pulled into the circle of Moon Frogs. She stepped on one by mistake, and it croaked louder, and seemed to fade, but continued its path around the circle.

The frogs’ croaking seemed to morph into a musical canter, and Luna spent a couple of minutes turning her heels, and letting her arms wave about the air, trying to find the rhythm of the music. Abraxas seemed unbothered, and stepped in a few times to grab hold of her waist and dip her back. They were not neat dancers; once she almost tripped over Cedric Diggory, who was dancing with a flustered Dennis Creevy, and another time slammed her back into Rufus Scrimgeour, who grunted, and danced away in the opposite direction with his partner, a house elf wrapped in a tablecloth.

The song seemed to change tone, and Luna caught her breath and stepped more slowly side to side, at an arm’s length from her partner.

“You look remarkably like your grandson,” Luna said.

Abraxas Malfoy looked uninterestedly to the side. “Never met him,” he quipped, “although I looked remarkably like my son too, and look what a self-interested twat he turned out to be. Didn’t even bother to hide the fact that he couldn’t wait to dance on my grave.”

He turned a critical gaze on Luna. “And you, I believe you are my fourth cousin, thrice removed,” he said. “We don’t look too alike, but in terms of breeding stock, I suppose you’re good enough.”

Luna’s lip tightened, and she squeezed his shoulder, almost threateningly.

Abraxas had the grace to look apologetic. “Well, I sound as if I’m talking about horse breeding or what not, but it’s all the same here, really. Mudbloods and purebloods, and humans and horses and centaurs. Death as the great equaliser, and all that rot. Think of it that way, if you have a taste for the philosophical.”

He twirled her in a circle and stamped his foot down on the rooftop.

The frogs were dancing more slowly, and the livings were bowing to the dead, who were fading as the starlight waned. Her father was looking wistfully as her mother disappeared, and then the living started to fade as well.

“Is that it?” Luna asked, to nobody in particular. “I would have liked the chance to dance the Czárdás.”

“What?” Abraxas was asking.

“Czárdás, Hungarian folk dance as popularised by the Romani-”

“Never mind girl,” Abraxas said, brushing off her explanation. “It was lovely attending this dance with you. It may be a long while, or a short while, but I’m sure we’ll receive the opportunity to dance again.”

Luna bowed and let herself fall downwards, and felt the words well up in her throat automatically, and escape into the night air.

“So it was spoken, so shall it be. Avada Kedavra,” she whispered.

 


End file.
